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Letting Go of Worry

5/23/2015

If you trusted yourself to make the right decision and to take the right action in situations as they arise, would you still worry?

Dr. Thynn Thynn, a Burmese doctor turned meditation teacher in the Theravada Buddhist tradition has said,

“Peace is a natural mind-state in every one of us. Peace has been there since the day we were born and it is going to be there till the day we die. It is our greatest gift; so why do we think we have no peace of mind?

“Experiencing peace is like looking at our hands. Usually, we see only the fingers—not the spaces in between. In a similar manner, when we look at the mind, we are aware of the active states, such as our running thoughts and the one-thousand-and-one feelings that are associated with them, but we tend to overlook the intervals of peace between them.”

Worry fills up those intervals, those spaces, until there is no room between thoughts. Worry causes stress and extended worry turns into anxiety.

I spent years constantly worried. I worried about everything and everyone. One particularly acute instance comes to mind.

I once had a friend who went to jail for dealing pot. He was away for years, and I never wrote or visited him because I was afraid to ask his brother how to get in touch with him. This was because the brother had gone a little wacko stalker on me many years earlier.

I was in the depths of my disorder when I heard that my friend was out of jail and had a job as a workman for a company in the small town where I lived. My guilt racked me. I was worried—beyond worried—that I would run into him. Maybe obsessed. Did I mention the town was small, so that an accidental meeting was actually highly likely? I just knew that he would be disappointed in me. I had let him down. I just knew that if I saw him I would panic, say something stupid, and ultimately have to admit to being an utterly shitty person.

I became hypervigilant. When I saw any truck belonging to that company I would hide, to the point of turning down streets I had no business being on, whether I was walking or driving. When I was alone at home, which was the whole school day long, I would sit rigid at the window, watching for their trucks, terrified to see one.

I spent days, maybe weeks, with my heart clenched in guilt over past actions and fear of an imaginary future experience.

Nuts! Yes, indeed. Frighteningly so. I knew something was very wrong with how I was acting; I was completely hijacked by worry.

Most of us, most of the time, aren’t consumed with worry to the point of being immobilized. But we do worry needlessly. We worry most about the people in our lives—our family and friends and co-workers. We might worry about what could happen to them or what they think about us. We might even worry for them. We might worry they aren’t making the best decisions. I used to worry about what my husband wore and what he ate. Turns out, he is indeed a grown man who can take care of himself!

999 times out of 1000, worry isn’t helping. The people we care about don’t need a worry-wart; they need someone who will be present with them and accept them as they are without trying to fix them; someone to listen with an open heart; and someone who will take action when it’s needed and only when it’s needed.

From Swami Rama,

“You can learn to control your mind very well—because it is yours, but do not try to control the minds of others and make them dependent. When one becomes dependent, one suffers, so you should learn to be independent, and you should not make others dependent upon you.”

Worry is a symptom of a lack of trust. If you trusted yourself to make the right decision and to take the right action in situations as they arise, would you still worry? What about the people in your life? Can you trust them to make their own choices? Spoiler: they’re going to anyway! The only person whose actions you can determine is you.

So, how can we, as individuals, come to make spontaneously good choices? Be Love.

I do not mean a superficial love, with rainbows and Lisa Frank stickers, or gooey, lusty love. I mean the Love that created and sustains this Reality and that beats in your heart. The Love that mystics mean when they say God is Love. Let Love be the rule that you always follow, to the point that it becomes ingrained in you.

In Yoga, the first moral precept is ahimsa—nonharming. All the other rules are based on this one. In every decision, do the least harm. It’s not unlike the Golden Rule, which can be found in one form or another in all the world’s religions: Do to others as you would have done to you. In every decision, do the most good.

Rick Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley put it this way,

"Across all faiths and traditions, every great teacher had asked us to be loving and kind. Loving-kindness is not about being nice in some sentimental or superficial way: it is a fearless, passionate cherishing of everyone and everything, omitting none."

Plus, it feels good to let yourself live a life of Love. It feels like freedom and joy.

Worry will happen. Our brains are built to seek out threats and escape them. But if you trust in yourself and in Love, you can learn to let go of your worries. It just takes practice. That is what we do on the mat and in meditation.

I did eventually run into my old friend. He let me hug him.

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Reconnecting with the Body

5/10/2015

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At 14, I was raped. That was when I started to separate from my body, to see it as the robot that carries my brain around.

I spent my twenties as an academic, becoming more and more abstracted from the physical.

Having lived my whole life predisposed toward anxiety, by my mid-30s I was paralyzed with fear. When my disorder was at its peak, my entire body hurt. My muscles were tense; my joints were stiff; at times my shoulders and neck were so rigid, touching them made me flinch. I had daily headaches and the muscles in my jaw were tight enough to create an underbite. (I still have to wear an appliance at night to correct it.) On top of that I slept poorly, often with night sweats; I was frequently nauseous; and I felt like I had to pee all the time.

I saw my body as a traitor.

But there was a flaw in my thinking. It was in seeing my body as something separate from my mind.

Our minds don’t end at the base of the brain. We have neurons throughout our bodies, and ganglion, or clusters of neurons, especially at the heart, solar plexus, and gut. These neurons transmit important messages, even though they don’t use words.

My body was trying to tell me that something was very, very wrong.

In the Taittiriya Upanishad, written when people had lifetimes to sit and ponder these things, it says each of us has five koshas or bodies that intertwine:
(1) the physical body
(2) the prana body, made of life energy (chi or ki in Chinese medicine)
(3) the mind body, made of sensation and emotion
(4) the wisdom body, made of perception, understanding, and higher thinking
(5) the bliss body, which is the Soul itself.

So, body, energy, mind, wisdom, and Soul.

These are, until we die, completely enmeshed in one another. Spiritual progression occurs as we accept and nurture every level of our being, from the most solid to the most rarified.

On the mat, step one is to reconnect with our physical bodies. To observe, accept, and nurture. To practice compassion toward ourselves. All the while remembering that you are not your body, any more than you are your passing thoughts. You are a Soul; you are Love.

And for the time being, your body, your energy, your sensations, emotions, ideas, and even ecstasies--they are all a part of the same manifestation of the Sacred through which you get to experience this life. Good things come from embracing this body-mind, with its flesh and bones and brain, for the mind-blowing entity that it is: a fleeting outward expression of the Sacred becoming conscious of itself.

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You Are Made of Love

5/6/2015

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Here’s how this works:
Brahman (i.e., God) is Love.
God (i.e., Brahman) created everything out of Itself.
You are part of everything, made of Brahman.
Hey presto! You are made of Love.

Brahman is the eternal, unchanging reality. It is described as sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) and called the Creative Consciousness and Lord of Love among other names.

While some schools of yoga are dualist, Hatha Yoga is nondual; that is to say, in the philosophy of Hatha Yoga everything that exists is a manifestation of the same substance, called Brahman. There is no matter vs spirit, body vs mind. The experience of “otherness” is what we work to overcome. We peel away the constructed layers to reveal an atman, our soul—only to find that atman and Brahman are One.

All is One.

Mystics the world over and throughout time tell us God is Love. From their (our?) striving to attain unity with the sacred, they return with the revelation that the firsthand experience of Ultimate Reality feels like Love. Not goopy, sentimental love. This Love is not only unconditional but unconditioned.

Mystical experiences are hard to put into words. Here’s my best go: when you touch the eternal creative consciousness, when you abide in it, you stop looking. You’ve found it, whatever it was you were looking for—peace, home, the answer. And when you come back from that experience, you feel giddy with bliss; warm with belonging; Loved on an indescribable scale.

According to Yoga, what you have connected with is your True Self. That is who you are. You are Love.

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Letting Go

5/6/2015

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The quotation I use as my jumping off point here is from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which is possibly the oldest Upanishad. Parts of it date back nearly 3000 years.

(Keep in mind that “immortality” here means spiritual liberation, not physical immortality but the living realization of the Spiritual Self that never dies.)

When all the desires that surge in the heart
Are renounced, the mortal becomes immortal.
When all the knots that strangle the heart
Are loosened, the mortal becomes immortal.
Here in this very life.

(Translation from Eknath Easwaran)

The task at hand is to renounce desire, undo the knots that strangle the heart. What does that mean? Detachment.

“Renounce” is a trumped up way of saying “let go.” Our desires pull us toward some things and away from other things, creating cravings in one direction and fears in the other. That is why we work at letting go of both our attachments and our aversions–the things we really want and things we really don’t want. It’s all just baggage, just trappings that obscure the True Self.

Like a drag queen taking herself too seriously, the outside is just for show and the minute we forget it, we’ve lost the point.

Another way of looking at it is taking the long view. The things that seem so important to us right now are only important relative to other things. In the long run, nothing matters but embodying your authentic Self, which by the way is made of love.

On the mat we practice detachment, letting go. Detachment can be scary. What’s left? What is there to hold on to? Who am I after I’ve let go of all my likes and dislikes, all my needs and fears?

First of all, those things we like and dislike, that we think of as making up who we are, they don’t just disappear. They are still there, just in their rightful place, seen as constructs and no longer central to who we think we are. (Constructs, as in, we constructed them. And whatever we’ve built we can alter.)

And secondly, any talk of detachment must be balanced by compassion. When you have let go of all the likes and dislikes, attachments and aversions, all of the preferences that make up the ego personality, what’s left is the True Self, which we all have in common. It is made of love, and compassion is its base state. So, who are you when you’ve let go of everything? You are pure love. Free to shine all the time.

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About Perfectionism

5/6/2015

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Many of us manifest our anxiety as perfectionism. And it is a drag.

Here’s a good definition of what I’m talking about, from Reneau Z. Peurifoy’s Anxiety, Phobias, and Panic.

“As with all human traits, perfectionism has both positive and negative sides. In its healthy form, perfectionism is characterized by setting demanding, but attainable goals for oneself. Healthy perfectionists also tend to enjoy working on tasks that require great attention to detail. This type of perfectionism leads to excellence in a chosen field and can help a person tremendously.

“In its negative form, perfectionism has three primary characteristics. The first is the tendency to set unrealistically high standards and goals for oneself, and often for others as well. The second is the tendency to use all-or-nothing thinking when evaluating one’s actions or achievements and to consider failure anything that does not meet the unrealistically high standards. The third characteristic is a selective point of view that focuses on small flaws and errors rather than on one’s overall progress or achievement.”

I find this super helpful. It’s important to know what we’re looking for when we’re trying to identify and root out irrational thinking.

For me, they all tie in together. I have a tendency toward thinking I have to be the best, and if I'm not then whatever it was, it wasn’t worth doing in the first place. I zoom in on what went wrong and let that overshadow what went well. Unrealistically high standards? Check. All or nothing thinking? Check. Focusing on flaws rather than progress? Check.

The mat is a great place to let go of perfectionism. We can pay close attention and work hard on our yoga without having unrealistic expectations, without thinking we aren’t doing it “right” because we don’t look a certain way in a pose.

To be good at yoga has nothing to do with how you look in a pose, and everything to do with paying attention, noticing when your mind wanders, and coming back – again and again. Coming back to your body and to your breath. Coming back to that still, quiet center and reconnecting with your True Self.

More thoughts on being “perfect” at elephant journal: Learning to Work With What We Have.

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Taking on Too Much

5/6/2015

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This is Stephen Mitchell’s version of the Tao Te Ching section nine.

Fill your bowl to the brim
And it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
And it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
And your heart will never unclench.
Care about other’s approval
And you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

It's a warning against taking on too much. “Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.”

When things seem to be coming at you from all directions; when your calendar is full; when you have multiple projects going on at once; many irons in the fire – it can be exhilarating, it can be exhausting, and it can be addicting.

We can become addicted to the rush and to the feeling of getting things done. We can think that being busy, ticking things off the to-do list, is the same as being important.

And then, when there is less to do, maybe we feel less important, so we add more things to do when they don’t really need doing. “Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.”

Chasing after money, security, and other people’s approval will never lead to peace of mind.

The only thing that really matters is living your authentic life. Stripping away all that is false, everything that doesn’t resonate with your True Self, and living the life of love in which you most feel at home.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

Let us practice doing just what needs to be done, no more and no less, and letting that be enough.

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Letting Go of Worry

Reconnecting with the Body

You Are Made of Love

Letting Go

About Perfectionism

Taking on Too Much

Yoga Talk

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